ad absurdum

Very subtle trick. Blink and you myth it. .

Worrisome words from a barber ... . . Hi, I'm Sweeney Todd.

Thank you, Ella, for one of the Thursdayest Thursdays we've seen in quite some time! A Thursdayass Thursday. Got held up a bit thinking 4D had to be trump.

My five favorite original clues from last week (in order of appearance): 1. You can't eat just one, whoops, that should be you just can't eat one 2. Whatever you do, don't try the emu-flavored variety of this 3. The Polish word for "ick" 4. Oreo 5. My cat's name OREO OREO OREO OREO FLUFFY THE FURNITURE SLAYER No encore clues this week cause I gotta get back to my vacation. Acid ain't gonna drop itself!

In the clearing stands an eboy A chessboxer by his trade And he carries the reminders Of every rook that checked his king Or pwned him till he cried out In his anger and his shame "I'm conceding, I'm conceding, The Queen's Gambit snarfed me down" Are we there yet?

I really enjoyed this, which is surprising since I didn't have grape expectations.

Alex Jeffrey Pretti. You can read all about him on the front page of the NYT. But apparently I'm not allowed to write his name.

Arhat ... is a very, very, very fine hat With two dents in the crown The brim bent smartly down Now all my hair is messy cause of you (Anyone wanna tackle ARCANE?)

Fantastic debut. Mr. Lively will be a TAN of this industry if he can COMPOSITE more puzzles like this.

From wikipedia: "Amin's rule was characterized by rampant human rights abuses, including political repression, ethnic persecution, extrajudicial killings, as well as nepotism, corruption, and gross economic mismanagement." Yeesh. Seems a little harsh for someone who was just trying to make Uganda great again. (Email me when my comment is removed)

[The highest number of oniony bread rolls one can store?] MAX BIALYSTOCK

I know I can be guilty of too much name-dropping(Thora Birch, Latto and Princess Di have all teased me about it), but I had to share that I met Medusa once. I think. I can't be sure because I was stoned.

BTW, I just have to say that Lala the Pomeranian is absolutely adorable! Don't you just wanna eat her up?! Too soon?

1. [Like a typical Byron Walden puzzle solve] 2. [Detective's overly excited words upon arriving at a crime scene] 3. [Pee?] 4. ["We never call it __________!", rebuke to a tourist by a person from Frisco] 5. [Plaintive appeal to Godzilla] 6. [Dangerous things to have on motorcycles] I had a blast with this peach of a puzzle! It was a real toughie, though! 1. SEVEN HOUR 2. "HEY! ANY BODY?" 3. PRESS START 4. "THE" BART, MAN 5. "LOWER HOUSE" 6. OPEN MOUTHS

Seigel and Geisel are anagrams. Coincidence? Obvs. I loved this puzzle! Does this work: [=Adam=] FIRST AMONG EQUALS

[Consent?] BEDROOM AYES

I knew the subject of 40D when he was still Second Lieutenant Underpants. I hear he was short-listed for Defense Secretary.

Cute and sassy, exactly what I want from a puzzle, or a puppy. But the proper plural is CIGAR BOXEN.

"Nuuk. Nuuk." "Who's there?" "Greenlanders."

As a stage magician, I learned MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE the hard way.

[Twerking] A BUN DANCE

Giraffes are very social animals. They just want to belong.

Bird is the word. I thought the clues and answers were quite amusing. Good workout for my birdbrain. Forgive me, but I've gotta crow: I, too, am a mammal that can roll up into a ball. (Still waiting for a good reason to unroll.)

I still get embarrassed thinking about the time I dressed in a French maid's outfit when I thought I was interviewing to be a maid man.

I visited the proctologist and now I'm ... I visited the urologist for a test and I ... I love punny themes like this that I have a chance of figuring out without many letters to help. Even if I don't figure them out, it's fun trying. SITTING PRETTY WHIZZED RIGHT THROUGH IT

"How would you characterize our current relations with Middle Eastern nations?" "I GOTTA JET!"

"I'm thinking about visiting Canadian Territories." "Yukon if you want." ("Nunavut looks very interesting.") (Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.) (Mispronunciation is the sincerest form of punning.)

Doh! All this time I've been writing letters to Satan. That explains so much.

Loved the theme! But when I saw so many comments on a Tuesday I could only imagine the forum would be filled with excited chatter about Zendaya and Tom Holland getting engaged in Northern Ireland! Hee hee. Naw, that's a Belfast lie.

I worry that the cutesy BRITICISM just encourages Brits to keep using the wrong words for things. I used to find it endearing, but I'm tyred of it. It's been a hard day's night, and I've been ...

"To find the bug, you must be the bug. Patience, young Grace Hopper."

KAC doesn't just tok the tok, he woks the wok!

If ever, oh ever, a Wiz there was Then Wiz Khalifa is one because Because, because, because, because, because Because of the way he raps while buzzed

[Moving to Canada, say] ESCAPE PLAN Maybe that should be [Moving to Canada, eh]

[Driver's Ed: F] No, it isn't consistent with the theme. BRAKING BAD

But is BEA really an apt name for a spelling champion or is it humorously inapt?

Wow. I adored the big fat Greek gridding. Great work, Dylan. Constructing this must have been quite an odyssey. What ever happened to Fay Wray?

Is that supposed to be a little orange person in the center of the grid around whom the world apparently revolves?

I remember when everyone started playing "I Spy" nearly 20,000 years ago. In case you didn't know, back then people had two differently-sized eyes, for important evolutionary reasons. Our little eye could see objects far away, such as wolves, so we could spot danger. So one would say, "I spy with my "little eye" something that begins with a 'w' sound". (We didn't have alphabets yet, which is whatever, but also no alphabet soup, which was a bummer.) Our big eye on the other hand(not literally) could see nearby objects. I still remember saying, "Look at the wolves surrounding us! They're so cute! Mommy, can we keep them and teach them tricks and let them sleep with us?!" Anywho, I Spy was a very popular car game back then. (It's a popular misconception that we didn't have cars that long ago. Of course we had cars. But we didn't have roads so we just sat in them and played I Spy or looked at our phones.)

Pleasingly challenging puzzle with some fun cluing! However I take issue with Sam's comment: "38A. I’d describe this entry as “stretchy” in puzzle parlance because it stretches the limits of a word’s standard definition to accommodate a looser meaning." Sam is wrong. And I know a thing or two about words as an esteemed Nobel Laureate in literature*. *I recently acquired the award at a garage sale. And I'm proud to accept this award that I deserve, maybe more than anyone ever. But being a magananimous person, I feel the writer who first owned the award deserves almost as much credit as I do. Although I've never heard of him or her.

I knew EIDETIC because long ago I read a thriller with a hero who had a photographic memory. A few years later I read a few chapters of it before I realized I'd read this book before. True story.

I used to work at a pickle factory. Until I got canned.

Whoops. I had Beethoven before BACH. Understandable as they have the same number of letters. If, like me, you're really really mad at baths. What's amazing to me is how diabolically normal the spoonerized the clues look. A packed lunch is a thing! That's why I(and probably many of you) didn't have a clue(other than the actual clue) as to what was going on! Blind mown!

TWAs fun!

Koan of the day: If a team leader holds an entire meeting that nobody can hear, was it still a waste of everyone's time?

Whoa, who knew about ponies!? I think this'll really improve my polo game. All this time I've been playing on a lark. L'orange you glad I didn't say l'banana?

I'm surprised more of you aren't familiar with no cap. It's an abbreviated version of a response to someone questioning if they should trust you. "How do I know you're telling the truth?" "I'm not wearing a red cap."

I found this one appropriately challenging. I love entries like COSLEEPER and LASER MAZE. I didn't know either one by name, but once I got close to completing them I knew they were correct. The all-too-infrequent commentator of late, Puzzlemucker, once said that what Mike(from Munster) does is a lot harder than it looks. I whole-heartedly agree. Most of us can come up with occasional puns, but to pick a relevant topic every single day and then, well, we all know the amazing and entertaining work he does and what a great guy he is and how lucky we are to have him here. Why on Earth would somebody go after him? I don't like anyone attacking anyone here, but it would at least make sense if you were to question someone inconsistent and frequently incomprehensible, unfunny, rude, smug or annoying. (I'm too polite to name names, and I don't want to hurt my feelings.)(Everyone is welcome to tell me I'm none of those things, i.e., LIE TO ME.) Please keep doing what you do, Mike!

Girl, what a sparkly and entertaining puzzle that was! I'm especially impressed to see the symmetrically-placed Ramses the First and Ashant the First. And both of them crossing the infamous Empress O'Martin the first!